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July 2009, Vol. 15, No. 1

Transitions to Adulthood
Program Shown to Significantly Delay Child Marriage

An innovative program designed and evaluated by the Population Council, in collaboration with government agencies in Ethiopia, has significantly reduced child marriage among young adolescent girls. (Child marriage, defined as marriage before the age of 18, is a violation of human rights, according to many international conventions.) The program, which also substantially improved many aspects of the girls’ lives, is one of the first such successes documented by rigorous research.

Rural Amhara
In the Amhara region of Ethiopia, rates of child marriage are among the highest in the world. Half of all girls in Amhara are married before their 15th birthday, and 80 percent are married by age 18. Girls who marry early are exposed to increased reproductive risks, experiencing sexual initiation earlier than unmarried girls as well as first births at a young age. Very early first births are associated with maternal risks, including obstructed labor that can lead to obstetric fistula.

Amhara also has high rates of divorce, with many divorced girls migrating to urban centers because of the stigma of divorce. Anecdotal evidence suggests that in order to survive, these young women often become domestic workers, involving long hours and low pay, and some, as a last option, become sex workers.

The Population Council, led by Ethiopia country director Annabel Erulkar, joined with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Youth and Sport and the Amhara Regional Bureau of Youth and Sport to design and implement the Berhane Hewan program in Amhara. Berhane Hewan means “Light for Eve” in Amharic. The groups developed the program to inform community members about the dangers of child marriage, to prevent early marriage among unmarried adolescents, and to provide support for girls who are already married.

Before the start of the program, researchers conducted a survey of adolescent girls in Amhara and found:

• Ninety-five percent of the girls surveyed did not know their husband before marriage, and 85 percent were not told that they were going to be married.
• More than two-thirds of married girls reported that they had not started menstruating when they had sex for the first time.
• Not surprisingly, many of these marital unions are unstable: 12 percent of girls in Amhara aged 10–19 are already divorced.

On the basis of these findings and the results of conversations with community members, the program was designed to use a combination of approaches:

• participation in peer groups for married and unmarried girls led by female mentors in community meeting spaces to overcome the isolation of adolescents;
• promotion of school attendance for both formal and non-formal education, such as basic literacy and livelihood skills;
• economic incentives for school attendance and delaying marriage: unmarried girls who participated in the groups and remained unmarried for the duration of the program were presented with a goat at the graduation ceremony; and
• participatory community discussion concerning early marriage, other harmful traditional practices, and reproductive health.

The Amhara Regional Bureau of Youth and Sport pilot-tested the program in Mosebo Village, Amhara region, between 2004 and 2006. The community responded enthusiastically to the program; more than 650 girls in Mosebo joined Berhane Hewan in the two-year pilot period.

Participating girls had three options for involvement in the program. Girls who were still in school were encouraged to continue their education and were given school materials, such as paper, pens, and pencils. Out-of-school girls who wanted to return to formal school were encouraged to do so and were given the same materials. Other out-of-school girls, as well as those who never attended school, were organized into groups of married and unmarried girls of about 15–20 girls each and met regularly with mentors. Married girls, who face more time constraints than unmarried girls, met once a week; unmarried girls met five times a week.

The researchers also studied comparable girls in another area—Enamirt Village, Mecha District—where the program had not yet been launched. The researchers conducted population- based impact evaluations immediately before the implementation and again two years later, in both experimental and control areas. Researchers examined changes associated with the program by comparing characteristics of girls living in both locations before and after the pilot program. This evaluation focused on four main areas: social networks and participation, education, marital status, and reproductive health.

Success!
The evaluations showed that the vast majority of girls living in the experimental area (92 percent) had heard of the program. Eighty-five percent of them had taken part in the peer groups, and three-fourths had attended a community discussion. At the same time, no girls in the control area had heard of the program, reflecting no contamination of the control site.

The researchers found that the lives of girls who participated in the program improved in all areas that were targeted by the program, including friendship networks, school attendance, age at marriage, reproductive health knowledge and communication, and contraceptive use.

The impact of the program was particularly apparent for younger girls, aged 10 to 14. After controlling for marital status, age, and socioeconomic status, Mosebo girls in this age group were significantly more likely to be in school than were girls in the control area. Family planning use increased in both areas, but more so in the experimental site. No statistically significant differences were found between the two communities in use of family planning methods at baseline. Among married and sexually experienced girls, those living in Mosebo were nearly three times more likely to have ever used a family planning method after the intervention. Compared to girls in the control site, girls in the program site also were significantly more knowledgeable about HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and family planning methods, and were more likely to have discussed these issues with a close friend.

Child marriage
Perhaps most strikingly, statistical analysis revealed considerable effects on the age at marriage for younger girls, aged 10 to 14. Younger Mosebo girls were 90 percent less likely to be married than were Enamirt girls in the same age group. In addition, not one girl aged 10 to 14 in Mosebo had married during the previous year. However, marriage was more common for older girls in Mosebo, after the age of 15, than it was in Enamirt, as some girls in Mosebo who had avoided marriage at a younger age got married in their late teens.

“This was perhaps due to the social expectation for marriage during adolescence and its linkage with the status of the girl’s father. In Ethiopia, girls who are not married by late adolescence are considered a disgrace to their family,” explained Erulkar. “Nevertheless, girls in Mosebo were given a few critical extra years in which to expand their social networks, attend school, learn more skills, and develop as individuals.”

Because most girls participated in all program components, it is difficult to tell whether specific components were more influential than others in bringing about change. The Berhane Hewan experiment demonstrates that significant impacts can be made on the social, educational, and health status of adolescent girls in a short period of time, through well-designed and -implemented support programs for girls. Based on this success, the program has been expanded and now enrolls 12,000 girls in rural Ethiopia, including in Enamirt.

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